How to handle this strange Gmail bounce: “read error: generic::failed_precondition”
Posted: Wed Dec 11, 2024 3:42 am
Several users have recently reported seeing bounce backs from Gmail that look like this:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
Technical details of permanent failure:
read error: generic::failed_precondition: read error (0): error
We’ve seen bounces like this for both regular Gmail users and Google Apps users using GMass. The error is a non-standard bounce message that is specific to sending via the Google platform. What causes the error? Nobody is certain for sure, but the Internet speculates that it’s either one of the following:
The remote server is rejecting the email due to an SPF failure. This is applicable to georgia phone number resource Google Apps users that are sending from their own organization’s domain, not from gmail.com or googlemail.com.
The remote server is rejecting the email because Gmail’s sending IP is blacklisted, but Gmail doesn’t want the end user to know that’s the reason for the fail, so this generic message is delivered instead.
Regarding reason #2, generally we’ve seen that the deliverability through Gmail’s servers is the world’s best, but it seems that occasionally even Gmail’s servers get blacklisted.
Regarding reason #1, if you’re a Google Apps user, regardless of whether you’re using GMass, ensure that you have SPF set up correctly for your domain. That means you need to configure the DNS for your domain to allow email to be sent by Google’s servers on behalf of your domain. You can check if your domain is configured allow Google to send email on its behalf via this easy-to-use tool. Just input your domain, and check the results. I just checked my own domain, wordzen.com, which runs on Google Apps, and noticed an issue, which I’m about to fix:
The SPF record for wordzen.com breaks the rules by requiring too many DNS lookups.
In the case of wordzen.com’s SPF record, the record includes permission for Google’s servers to send email for wordzen.com, but here’s an example of a domain of a GMass user where SPF doesn’t include Google’s servers at all:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
Technical details of permanent failure:
read error: generic::failed_precondition: read error (0): error
We’ve seen bounces like this for both regular Gmail users and Google Apps users using GMass. The error is a non-standard bounce message that is specific to sending via the Google platform. What causes the error? Nobody is certain for sure, but the Internet speculates that it’s either one of the following:
The remote server is rejecting the email due to an SPF failure. This is applicable to georgia phone number resource Google Apps users that are sending from their own organization’s domain, not from gmail.com or googlemail.com.
The remote server is rejecting the email because Gmail’s sending IP is blacklisted, but Gmail doesn’t want the end user to know that’s the reason for the fail, so this generic message is delivered instead.
Regarding reason #2, generally we’ve seen that the deliverability through Gmail’s servers is the world’s best, but it seems that occasionally even Gmail’s servers get blacklisted.
Regarding reason #1, if you’re a Google Apps user, regardless of whether you’re using GMass, ensure that you have SPF set up correctly for your domain. That means you need to configure the DNS for your domain to allow email to be sent by Google’s servers on behalf of your domain. You can check if your domain is configured allow Google to send email on its behalf via this easy-to-use tool. Just input your domain, and check the results. I just checked my own domain, wordzen.com, which runs on Google Apps, and noticed an issue, which I’m about to fix:
The SPF record for wordzen.com breaks the rules by requiring too many DNS lookups.
In the case of wordzen.com’s SPF record, the record includes permission for Google’s servers to send email for wordzen.com, but here’s an example of a domain of a GMass user where SPF doesn’t include Google’s servers at all: